Book Review - Adobe Photoshop CS3 Studio Techniques (Paperback)

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Studio Techniques (Paperback)

by Ben Willmore (Author)

This is Ben's 3rd installment of Studio Techniques that I've read. I would agree with others that if you are going to buy only one Photoshop book then this should be it. Ben does a great job of running thru every aspect of the application and how to use it.

Towards the beginning of the book he introduces the selection tools and explains them very well. But like the previous two books, he leaves out the pen tool and doesn't introduce it until the chapter on "Advanced Masking". I believe this is a disservice to the reader and may set them up to think that only experienced users should learn the pen tool. I disagree with this. The pen tool is a basic skill to learn for anyone using any of the creative apps like Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign. This said, when Ben does get around to introducing it, he explains it well and gives a good example of how to use it. So even though he gets to it later than I would like, the reader will still learn from it.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book to all Photoshop users both beginner to intermediate. I would encourage the reader to review every section and not think that "Advanced" means they have to be an Advanced user to try out the tool. Just as Ben shows off some fun features in his "Creative Explorations" section the reader needs to have fun playing too with those features if they really want to learn Photoshop.